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October 14, 2017

Israel's Heron TP Armed Drone May Not Find Its Way to Indian Skies

New Delhi's ambition of obtaining technology for the manufacture of
armed drones has received a major setback with the Israeli ministry of
defense imposing several restrictions on the expert of Heron TP - a
combat UAV India was particularly interested in.
The Indian defense ministry approved the purchase of 10 Heron TP
drones last year and a final deal with the Israeli manufacturer was
in the offing. However, the imposition of restrictions by the Israeli
defense ministry has pushed the deal towards uncertainty as India's
proposal for the purchase posed a mandatory requirement of transfer
of technology from the foreign vendor.
In July of this year, Israel had exhibited keen interest in supplying
combat drones to India with the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
signing memorandums of understanding (MoU) with India's Dynamatic
Technologies and Elcom for the "manufacture of Medium Altitude Long
Endurance UAVs in India under technology transfer from IAI &
creation of futuristic UAV enterprise in India." The MoUs were signed
during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit which was the first
ever visit by an Indian Prime Minister to"The future is unmanned. Most Air Forces are working to have an
uninhabited air vehicle for every possible mission.
The USA already has
more UAVs than aircraft. India must become an independent UAV
manufacturer. No one will give technology. (We should either) beg,
borrow or steal the technology…Use economic muscle like China
did…Increase research funding," Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retired),
defense analyst told Sputnik. Israel.

With the restrictions in sharing of advanced technologies, the Israel
Aerospace Industries will find it extremely difficult to convince India
to buy it's million dollar combat drones. For India's part, it would
have to explore the possibility of a favorable deal with other
contenders like American General Atomics Aeronautical Systems which is
interested in selling the MQ-9 Reaper to India.

"The restrictions that the Israeli Ministry
of Defense attaches to the export of this advanced UAV are many, and
in such a close competition, maybe, a crucial factor," one Israeli
source told Flightglobal.

Israel Aerospace Industries also announced a new export-version
of the Heron TP on February 9th of this year at the AeroIndia exhibition
in Bengaluru. The export version of Heron TP was meant for members
of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) of which India became a
member in June 2016.
Meanwhile, India is currently developing its own combat drone —
Ghatak. However, even if everything goes according to plan, the drone
will only debut by 2025. India is under extreme pressure to instantly
deliver combat drones to its armed forces as the Chinese military is set
to get the first locally manufactured combat drones with the capability
of evading anti-aircraft weapons by as early as 2020.

"India is developing the Ghatak drone which may
not be capable of operating in a heavily contested airspace because
of its low observability (LO). We do need the technology to launch
weapons from drones. Predator B and Heron TP are both capable
of releasing weapons and acquiring these drones would give India access
to the technology," Vijainder K Thakur, former squadron leader of Indian
Air Force told Sputnik.

The Indian Air Force's fleet of 68 unarmed
Harpy Drones and 108 searchers also came from Israel, but these are
generally used to neutralize enemy radar positions and are designed
to self-destruct.